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Sure, you can go to ESPN or USA Today and drown in statistics about yards per carry and turnover ratios and profiles of the coaches and star players on the teams in this season's college football bowl games. But where do you go for the really important information about the bowl games -- you know, like how much money the teams and their conferences are sharing, and how the colleges' teams fare in the classroom?

Here, of course.

After a season filled arguably as never before with high-profile upsets, the annual talk of a full-blown playoff for the nation's highest-powered college football teams (like the one that exists in what used to be called Division I-AA, now called the Football Championship Subdivision), has intensified. But any change that might seriously undermine the existing football bowl structure is unlikely. That's partly because it leaves coaches and college presidents (and alumni, of course) affiliated with the 32 victorious universities smiling, and partly because of the financial payouts the bowls make to the participating colleges and their conferences, and the economic impact that the games themselves have on the host cities of the bowl games.

All told, the bowl games will provide roughly $245 million to the colleges whose teams will participate in the next month's games, much of which will be shared with their fellow conference members. (The exact amount is unclear, in part because the payouts are estimates and in part because one sponsor of several bowl games, ESPN Regional Television, declined to reveal the payments it planned to make to participating teams. A spokesman for ESPN could not be reached for comment on why the company -- whose television and magazine reporters are highly critical when teams or other parties withhold relevant salary or other financial information -- declined to provide the numbers.) Key information about the bowls, including their payout levels, which were drawn from the games' Web sites or other news sources, follows in the table below:

The 2008 Bowl Games, the Participants and the Payouts

Bowl

Date

Location

Participating Universities

Estimated payout per team

Poinsettia Bowl

December 20

San Diego

Utah vs. Navy

$750,000

New Orleans Bowl

December 21

New Orleans

Florida Atlantic v. Memphis

$325,000

Papajohn's Bowl

December 22

Birmingham, Ala.

Cincinnati v. Southern Mississippi

$300,000

New Mexico Bowl

December 22

Albuquerque

New Mexico v. Nevada-Reno

ESPN declined to provide

Las Vegas Bowl

December 22

Las Vegas

Brigham Young v. UCLA

ESPN declinedto provide

Hawaii Bowl

December 23

Honolulu

Boise State v. East Carolina

$750,000

Motor City Bowl

December 26

Detroit

Purdue v. Central Michigan

$750,000

Holiday Bowl

December 27

San Diego

Arizona State v. Texas

$2.25 million

Champs Sports Bowl

December 28

Orlando

Boston College v. Michigan State

$2.125 million

Texas Bowl

December 28

Houston

Texas Christian v. Houston

$750,000

Emerald Bowl

December 28

San Francisco

Oregon State v. Maryland

$750,000-$825,000

Meineke Car Care Bowl

December 29

Charlotte

Connecticut v. Wake Forest

$1 million

Liberty Bowl

December 29

Memphis

Central Florida v. Mississippi State

$1.7 million

Alamo Bowl

December 29

San Antonio

Penn State v. Texas A&M

$2.225 million

Independence Bowl

December 30

Shreveport, La.

Colorado v. Alabama

$1.1 million

Armed Forces Bowl

December 31

Fort Worth, Tex.

California v. Air Force

$750,000

Sun Bowl

December 31

El Paso, Tex.

Oregon v. South Florida

$1.9 million

Humanitarian Bowl

December 31

Boise, Idaho

Fresno State v. Georgia Tech

$750,000

Music City Bowl

December 31

Nashville

Kentucky v. Florida State

$1.65 million

Insight Bowl

December 31

Tempe, Ariz.

Indiana v. Oklahoma State

$1.2 million

Chic-Fil-A Bowl

December 31

Atlanta

Clemson v. Auburn

$2.915 million

Outback Bowl

January 1

Tampa, Fla.

Wisconsin v. Tennessee

$3.1 million

Cotton Bowl

January 1

Dallas

Missouri v. Arkansas

$3 million

Gator Bowl

January 1

Jacksonville, Fla.

Virginia v. Texas Tech

$2.5 million

Capital One Bowl

January 1

Orlando

Michigan v. Florida

$4.25 million

Rose Bowl

January 1

Pasadena, Calif.

Southern California v. Illinois

$17 million

Sugar Bowl

January 1

New Orleans

Georgia v. Hawaii

$17 million

Fiesta Bowl

January 2

Glendale, Ariz.

West Virginia v. Oklahoma

$17 million

Orange Bowl

January 3

Miami

Virginia Tech v. Kansas

$17 million

International Bowl

January 5

Toronto

Ball State v. Rutgers

$750,000

GMAC Bowl

January 6

Mobile, Ala.

Bowling Green v. Tulsa

$750,000

BCS Championship

January 7

New Orleans

Ohio State v. Louisiana State

$17 million

Another alternative prism through which to view the upcoming bowl games is by looking at the academic performance of the football players at the colleges and universities involved. The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport has done that work for us, collecting the relevant NCAA information -- on the Academic Progress Rate and the Graduate Success Rates -- for the 64 universities whose teams are participating in the bowl games between now and January 7.

Among the group's findings:

47 schools (73 percent) had graduation rates of 66 percent or higher for white football players, which was more than 3.6 times the number of schools with equivalent graduation rates for African-American football athletes (13 schools or 20 percent).

27 schools (42 percent) graduated less than 50 percent of their African-American football players, while only Florida Atlantic graduated less than 50 percent of their white football athletes.

Seven schools (11 percent) graduated less than 40 percent of their African-American football student-athletes, while no school graduated less than 40 percent of their white football student-athletes.